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Actress Kim Dickens, who’s been fruitfully shifting from TV projects (Treme, House of Cards) to movies (Gone Girl), is now firmly ensconced as “mama bear” Madison Clark on Fear the Walking Dead, which premieres its second season on April 10.

After an initial six-episode run, which successfully piggybacked on The Walking Dead, its sister show and ratings juggernaut, FTWD now returns for 15 episodes, tracking the family drama of Clark and her partner Travis Manawa (Cliff Curtis) through the lens of the same zombie apocalypse.

Dickens feels this fictional apocalypse is a metaphor for whatever society’s fears are. “Through our story, the audience examines our own primal fears — rampant outbreak of an infectious disease, war, an invasion or whatever triggers that fear — and how we deal with it. ‘What would I or we do if there was an infectious outbreak?’”

She laughs when asked what she would she do.

“I’d get all my family and friends together, and probably go over to Cliff Curtis’s home, let him take care of me. Go to their house in New Zealand.” Curtis, who’s of Maori descent and played tough guys in Training Day and Once Were Warriors, would undoubtedly be up for the job.

FTWD explores these questions in a different environment this season: on the open water.

Last season, audiences were introduced to enigmatic but well-heeled character Mr. Strand (Colman Domingo), who tells schoolteacher Madison he has a “home” on the water. In the trailer for the new season, we see our beleaguered heroes on said boat.

FTWD executive producer Dave Erickson says the new episodes will draw their tone more from movies like Dead Calm and Roman Polanski’s Knife in the Water.

Which raises questions such as can zombies swim? And who else has the bright idea to leave the land?

Dickens, who sees Madison as a “ferocious mother out to protect her family,” says of the new setting: “It’s a whole new environment, but it could turn out you’re just as vulnerable there. We’re all displaced now and, having left our homes, we can’t go back there. Now we’re stranded in the middle of the sea on a boat.

“It’s a completely shocking left turn. Our show now offers this other window into what happened during the same mythological apocalypse.”

Dickens says it’s a joy working with award-winning performers like Curtis and Ruben Blades, whose Latin music career recently earned him his seventh Grammy Award.

She’s also jazzed about playing Madison. “She’s a wonderful fantasy figure for me; I certainly couldn’t be as badass as her,” she says. “She’s got a very honourable profession as a teacher, and often they’re underestimated and certainly underpaid. But she’s got a really good BS detector, which gives her a good sense of almost fearlessness when it comes to humanity and dealing with the problems of the kids: a beautiful yet flawed character, and the dark past that she’s kept suppressed is probably the thing that will serve her well.”

Grateful for the built-in audience that The Walking Dead gave to her show, Dickens says she trusts viewers will come back because FTWD just “gets better and better.”

“It really takes off and catches fire; expect it to take exciting turns. We definitely have to fend off any zombie attacks, but at the same time our fellow humans will continue to be our biggest threat.”

Other zombie entertainment

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

George Romero’s black and white classic set the bar for the genre: “Welcome to a night of total terror!”

28 Days Later . . . (2002)

Directed by Danny Boyle, who later won a Best Director Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire, this terrifying zombie thriller reinvigorated the genre with some smart political metaphors.

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Directed by Edgar Wright with actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, this British horror comedy strikes a balance between satire, yuks and toothy zombies.

Warm Bodies (2013)

A funny zombie twist on a rom-com: hot zombie boy (Nicholas Hoult) meets and saves cute girl (Teresa Palmer) from a zombie attack, and his “warm heart” helps change both the monsters and humans.

World War Z (2013)

The scariest zombies of all time because they’re lightning quick not shuffling slowpokes. But hey, we’ve got Brad Pitt racing against time to stop the zombie pandemic.

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